Several years ago I made a list of all the things that I would like to spend my time on, in order of importance. Relationship and family were the first two. But we all maintain busy lives and finding a balance between relationship, family, work and daily chores is not easy.

When AikidoThe word "Aikido" is made up of three japanese characters: ai - harmony, ki - spirit, mind, or universal energy, do - the way. Thus Aikido is "the way of harmony with universal energy." became important to me, there were trade-offs and schedule changes that needed to be made, and I am thankful to my family for their support. Without them I would not make it. Also there are times when I come home from work thinking of all the things that could be done around the house and start hesitating about coming to practice. But it is regular training that does the magic in the end, so I grab my backpack and head to the dojoPlace of the way; a place for strengthening and refinement body, mind and spirit; training hall.

Aikido has attracted me with its paradigm of redirecting attacker’s force rather than opposing it, non-violent approach and beautiful yet effective techniques. Soon after joining the intro class I realized how narrow my understanding was.

Although techniques repeated over and over get remembered on a muscular level, it is not only the body that gets trained. Regular and effective training can be achieved only with a combination of physical and mental efforts.

Finding time in your daily schedule is just the beginning in the training of your spirit.

On the mat you are working with a partner but often struggling with yourself. Feeling of the center, proper timing, direction, footwork, and balance – everything is important. It seems simple when you watch somebody doing it, but this feeling is deceptive. There were many classes where I thought I had not done my best. But failure is part of the practice; success and failure always come together and are inseparable. Any never done before task that you take seems hard and uncomfortable, but if you keep doing it, success is inevitable.

There is another important thing related to the mental aspect of training that I understood only after sitting meditation classes. Only when you let go other thoughts and concentrate on one particular thing, whether it is your breath during meditation or your partner during training, its quality changes dramatically. The ability to bring that to the class or implement that in your daily life is an important milestone.

Although I have just begun walking this path, it is essential to keep going. As goes one of my son's favorite songs:

Soon you will see,
Just how brave
Brave your heart can be.
Look on up, to the sky.
Take that first step.
Kiss your fears goodbye.